Ever since Flight MH370 disappeared on its way to China in March, Ms Mustafa had refused to take shifts on planes travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. She feared the hostility of angry Chinese passengers, relatives said. But she had no qualms about continuing to fly, a passion since she joined the company at the age of just 18.

Munriah Mustafa, her 52-year-old sister, recalled how a teenage Mastura had secretly snuck off to an interview with the airline because she believed her parents would not approve of her globe-trotting ambitions.

"She was always very focused on her work but family always came first," she added.

Ten years ago, that family was blessed with a new member: a baby boy who was named Muhriz Marzaidi.

In Ms Mustafa's sitting room, shelves crammed with photographs of her son and books such as "The Boots Guide to Pregnancy" and "The Secret Language of Babies" pay testament to her enthusiasm for motherhood.

Mr Jaafar, 54, described his sister-in-law as a doting mother.

"Every time she came back she'd bring something for her son: toys, or maybe chocolate, a T-shirt," he said.

Sometimes Muhriz was even allowed to join his mother on her trips abroad. In recent years he had flown to Cape Town and London, his uncle said. "He would get very excited."

Muhriz was asleep when news of his mother's death reached his family home at around midnight last Thursday. It came via her brother who also works at Malaysia Airlines and had seen a copy of the MH17 flight manifest.

When Muhriz woke the next day for "suhoor", the daily predawn meal taken by Muslims before Ramadan fasting, he sensed something was wrong.

"He stood up and said that he had dreamed of his mum, all dressed in white, saying that she would not be coming back," said his uncle. "She told the boy that her time had come."

On Monday, his first day back at school since the disaster, Muhriz was putting on a brave face. "I'm just fine," he said, welcoming his visitors with a toothy, childish grin.

"I'm tired," he went on, hurling his backpack onto the sitting room carpet and sinking into the sofa. "I'm fasting."

Relatives said the boy's grief came in waves.

"At first he was shocked. He cried several times. He couldn't believe the news that his mother had passed away," said his uncle, who has been driving his nephew to school while Mohamed Afindi, the boy's father, seeks information on the whereabouts of his wife's body.

"Right now, we are here to look after him. But at night we don't know how he is."

Muhriz's greatest desire was to see his mother's body returned to Malaysia.

Relatives hope to bury her alongside her mother and sister at the Paroi Muslim Cemetery near their suburban family home in Seremban, a town around 35 miles from Kuala Lumpur.

"The rebels should show some humanity. Why are the rebels doing all this? It was not an army or fighters on the aircraft," Mr Jaafar said.

"They are pro-Russia, right? So why doesn't Putin just tell them to stop? Putin has the power, doesn't he? It would solve it."

Muhriz's father said he wanted to travel to Kiev to find and recover his dead wife. The Malaysian government has said it hopes to fly four people from each victim's family there.

Asked how he was coping, Mr Afindi broke down: "Only God knows. I'm speechless. I don't know what to say."

In the cabinet behind him a portrait of his wife had been placed beside five miniature Malaysia Airlines planes, photographs of her son as a toddler, and a poem.

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too love for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice," it read. "But for those who love, time is eternity."